Friday, December 17, 2010

When I open my front door there’s a heady waft of exquisite which smells like Christmas and I will never mind that I’ll still be finding the odd pine needle in February. I have eaten a mince pie with the crumbliest of pastry. I have beamed at those glorious Grade 2’s reciting 20 minutes of perfect poetry, regaling a story of St Francis and the wolf. I have tackled Christmas shopping purchasings in one three hour stint (until I remember what I have forgotten). I have a mostly manageable list of handmade which will, because it always does and I know how to push a deadline, have me scrambling into the wee small hours of December 25th. Today is the last half day of school.

And... EXHALE.

I bet you didn’t know toilet rolls could be mildly festive?

The Middle and I have been tackling a ‘together’ project which involves cut up loo rolls and pegs and twenty gallons of PVA glue and is inspired by this from this tipster. We’ve stalled, through want of PVA supplies but we imagine this little number could go on forever – thanks to the Small’s exuberant approach to loo paper and donations in the name of craft from this lover of mischief. Everytime the Middle and I work on it, the conversation is peppered with exclamations from both of us: AWESOME!!!

This is the fourth year we have purchased an advent stick from one of the school Mums. Parcels of tissue containing crafted and found loveliness that celebrate the festival of Advent: earth, light, animals, people.

Here is this year’s advent treasure collection in progress...

And finally, because I was itching to try some of the smooth! non-tangly! gorgeously coloured! Cosmos embroidery cotton (found at Amitié) and because I was coming over so festive and because I really am going to push that handcrafted pressie deadline, here is the beginnings of my Christmas Beetle...

Fantastic loo artwork! I think I may even be inspired to use all my loo rolls as the youngest here seems to use so much toilet paper! Love your christmas beetle, they were always so pretty in their colors!

What a lovely advent!! And the loo roll master piece is just that, A great activity to do together! I will try this one with my little girl, if I can get her away from using them as a trumpet for 2 mins!!

I found one of those iridescent green Christmas beetles just today! It was on the road, so I bravely picked it up and relocated it into someone's front garden. It's probably now hopelessly lost, but at least it's alive.

Tell your middle that toilet rolls make excellent bon bons (crackers) at Christmas, just wrap some paper around them and insert toy etc. You can buy the cracker/ bang bits from most craft or party supply stores!

I usually save the toilet rolls (nearly wrote trolls) for inside the bon bons - but we've been usurped by the shop bought ones this year! I LOVE what you've done with your toilet rolls - makes me wonder what you do with... icy pole sticks...???

I skimmed through this post last week and I haven't been able to get your tp roll art out of my head.. I love it so much I must duplicate. With all the tp we go through in this house it surely won't take long to get a good star..Your button ornament and beetle are awesome too of course. Love all the detail in the beetle..Isane..

Hi!I love your toilet-rolls-project, so I linked it on my blog (http://freshtrash.blog.com/), hope you don't mind! Feel free to sniff around there; I'm gonna continue to do so here, in search for other great ideas!

About Me

Mother of three, wife to one, designer and craftster of the slightly obsessive kind. Myrtle and Eunice were two lovely old ladies who connected weekly over the Scrabble tiles. These Saturday battles of will and skill were a ritual as comfy as a hot Milo and handknitted blanket on a frosty day.